"Does your highness like desert views?" he asked.
Qian Long smiled. "What do you think of it?"
"A lot of work has been put into it," Chen replied. There were a number of Muslim tents staked on the sand with three camels tied up nearby and with a sudden heartache, he thought of Princess Fragrance and her sister. Looking beyond, he saw several hundred workers demolishing several more buildings: the Emperor had obviously decided he wanted a bigger desert.
Chen wondered why on earth Qian Long would have had a piece of dry, desolate desert constructed in the palace grounds. Incongruously placed in the middle of such a lush Chinese garden, it looked simply ludicrous.
Qian long walked away from the window and pointed to the antique lute he had given Chen, now lying on a small table.
"Why don't you play me a tune?" he said.
Chen could see the Emperor did not wish to discuss the important business at hand, and he could not raise it himself, so he sat down and began to pluck the strings. As he played, something caught his eye, and he looked up to find the jade vases decorated with Princess Fragrance's image smiling at him across the room. With a twang, one of the strings broke.
"What's the matter?" Qian Long asked. He smiled. "Do you find yourself a little afraid, here in the palace?"
Chen stood up and replied respectfully: "Your humble servant has disgraced himself in front of your Celestial Majesty."
Qian Long laughed., greatly pleased by this. Chen lowered his head and noticed Qian Long's left hand was bound with a white cloth as if it was wounded. Qian Long's face flushed red and he hurriedly put the hand behind his back.
"Did you bring the things I wanted?" he asked.
"They are with my friends downstairs," Chen replied.
Qian Long picked up a small hammer and rapped the table with it twice and a young eunuch ran in. "Tell the gentlemen accompanying Master Chen to come up," he ordered, and the eunuch returned a moment later with the six heroes.
Chen stood up and shot them a glance and they had no option but to kneel down and kowtow before Qian Long.
"You stinking emperor!" Priest Wu Chen thought as he did so. "We almost scared you out of your wits that day in the pagoda in Hangzhou, but you're still just as damned arrogant. If it wasn't for the Great Helmsman, I would kill you this instant."
Chen took a small, sealed wooden box from 'Buddha' Zhao and placed it on the table. "They are in here," he said.
"Good. That will be all," Qian Long replied. "When I have looked at them I will send for you." Chen kowtowed again. "And take the lute with you," he added.
Chen picked up the lute and handed it to 'Leopard' Wei. "Since Your Highness has already subdued the Muslim areas, your servant pleads with you to be merciful and to order that there be no indiscriminate killings there," he said.
Qian Long did not answer, but simply waving them away with his hand. Bai Zhen led them to the palace gate where Wen and the others were waiting.
4
When Chen had gone, Qian Long dismissed the eunuchs and opened the small box. He read the Emperor Yong Zheng's note and the letter written by his natural mother, which said correctly that he had a red birthmark on his left buttock. He sighed. There could no longer be any doubt about his true origins. He ordered a eunuch to bring him a brazier and threw the documents one by one into the fire. As the flames leapt up, he began to feel more at ease, and on an impulse, threw the small wooden box into the flames as well, filling the room with heat and smoke.
He stared for a moment at the jade vases on the table, then said to the eunuch: "Send her up." The eunuch disappeared, and returned on his knees to report: "Your slave deserves to die. The lady refuses to come."
Qian Long laughed shortly and glanced at the jade vases again. Then he stood up and went downstairs. Two eunuchs followed carrying the vase.
One floor down, a maid servant pulled aside a curtain and Qian Long walked through into a room full of fresh flowers. Two other maids servants took the vases from the eunuchs and carefully placed them on a table.
A girl wearing a white gown was sitting facing the wall. With a wave of his hand, Qian Long dismissed the maid servants from the room. He had just opened his mouth to speak when the door curtains parted and two bodyguards came in and stood quietly by the entrance.
"What are you doing here? Get out," he said angrily.
"Your slaves have orders from the Empress Dowager to protect Your Highness," said one of the bodyguards.
"I'm fine. What do I need protection for?"
"The Empress Dowager knows she… that the lady is not… that she is strong-willed, and is afraid that she will inflict injury on Your Highness's precious self."
Qian Long glanced down at his bandaged hand, and shouted: "There's no need. Get out!"
The two bodyguards kowtowed frantically but did not retire. He knew that no matter what, they would not dare to disobey the Empress Dowager's orders, so he took no further notice of them, and turned back to face the girl in the white gown.
"Turn round, I have something to say," he said in the Muslim tongue. The girl took no notice. In her hand was a dagger. She gripped it even tighter.
Qian Long sighed. "Look at what is on the table," he said. The girl ignored him for a moment, but finally her curiosity got the better of her. She glanced round and saw the pair of jade vases, and at the same moment, the Emperor and the bodyguards were dazzled by the sight of her beauty: it was Princess Fragrance.
She had been captured by General Zhao Wei's army and sent to Beijing under special guard to the Emperor. Qian Long thought it would be more interesting to be able to talk to the girl directly, so he called for a teacher to teach him the Muslim tongue. He was an intelligent man and studied diligently, and after a few months he could talk in a halting fashion.
But Princess Fragrance was already tightly bound to Chen. Furthermore, Qian Long had been responsible for the death of her father, making her even more adament in her refusal of his advances. Several times she had been forced almost to the point of suicide, but each time she thought of Chen and restrained herself.
"I will be just like I was when surrounded by the wolves," she thought. "That large wolf wanted to eat me, but my knight finally saved me."
Qian Long watched her becoming more haggard day by day. He was afraid she would die of melancholy, so he called for the capital's best craftsmen and had the Precious Moon Pavilion built for her to live in.
But Princess Fragrance took not the slightest notice. The priceless treasures used to decorate the pavilion were ignored, except for the murals covering the walls. They depicted scenes of the Muslims areas, and she stared at them glassy-eyed, reliving over and over the carefree happiness of the days when she and Chen had been together.
Sometimes Qian Long spied on her secretly and saw her staring into distance, the trace of a smile playing around her lips. One day he could resist it no longer and he stretched out his hand to grasp her arm. There was a flash of a dagger, and only Princess Fragrance's ignorance of kung fu and his own sprightliness saved him. But his left hand had been cut and in a moment was covered in blood. He was so scared by the incident that from that moment on, he did not dare to risk annoying her again. When the Emperess Dowager heard of the matter, she ordered the eunuchs to take the dagger off her, but Princess Fragrance pointed it at her chest whenever anyone came near her and threatened to commit suicide. So Qian Long ordered them to stay away from her and not to interfere.